I would like to add that archiving and compressing are two distinct independent tasks. It is not very "UNIX-like" to combine distinct tasks into one tool, so GNU-tar, as handy as it may be, is a little bit against the cultural tradition of UNIX.

I would like to add that archiving and compressing are two distinct independent tasks. It is not very "UNIX-like" to combine distinct tasks into one tool, so GNU-tar, as handy as it may be, is a little bit against the cultural tradition of UNIX.

bakunin

I agreed GNU-tar is "against the cultural tradition of UNIX" but assume if we need to ftp many directory from one server into another every hours ??
1: maintain the dir
2: reduce the size so that FTP faster
By using GNU-tar it save us a lot of time,i believe.
In my environment we need to sync data between server in different country, this work the best.

I agreed GNU-tar is "against the cultural tradition of UNIX" but [...] By using GNU-tar it save us a lot of time,i believe.

I guess this is why the shell was invented in first place: to glue together all the little specialized tools which do only what they are intended to do, but that they do efficiently.

For the same reason one might need a tool that lists a directory and to translate its contents into chinese - that doesn't mean it would be a good idea to incorporate a translator for chinese into "ls".

If you buy tools (out in the real world, not on a computer) you'd usually buy screwdrivers, hammers, saws, etc.. These tools may serve only one purpose (a screwdriver for handling screws, a hammer for hammering, etc.), but ideally they serve this purpose well. If you try to buy a screwdriver which is a saw and a scissor and a hammer at the same time you'll end up with some sort-of "72-functions-swiss-army-knife", which does serve a lot of purposes all equally bad.